‘The Penguin Lessons’: Toronto Review

Dir: Peter Cattaneo. UK. 2024. 110mins

While teaching at a prestigious British private school in politically tumultuous 1970s Buenos Aires, a callow English professor rescues a penguin which becomes a valuable teaching tool — both for his impressionable young students, and himself. Adapting the 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, director Peter Cattaneo (no stranger to helming feel-good fare like The Full Monty, The Rocker and Military Wives) and screenwriter Jeff Pope initially follow the book’s tight focus within the cloistered confines of the school. But while Michell’s story is no doubt a heartwarming one, the decision to go beyond the confines of his lived experience and use the wider socio-political landscape to add further drama is ill-judged — and may hamper its journey following its Toronto debut.

Proves to be neither fish nor fowl

Lionsgate have UK rights, and home audiences could well be tempted by the buddy movie teaming of a penguin and the ever-watchable Steve Coogan. He plays English teacher Michell, who arrives at St George’s College on the outskirts of Buenos Aires in 1976 and is surprised to be greeted by twitchy armed guards. You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand the angry ‘bastardos fascistas’ graffiti daubed on the wall; an explosion on the city skyline behind him is another conveniently-timed hint at unrest. But, once inside the grounds, St George’s reveals itself to be a beautiful English oasis, Xavi Gimenez’s camera giving its manicured lawns, tennis courts and sunny terraces (and all of the film’s locations throughout Gran Canaria, Argentina and Uruguay) an optimistic sheen.

It is immediately clear that this is a completely different world from the one outside, in which Argentinian president Isabel Perón is being ousted in a military coup that would usher in an eight-year military dictatorship. The school’s fussy headmaster (Jonathan Pryce) almost immediately warns Michell that, as an institution populated by boys of local rich families, they must keep their politics to themselves and their opinions entirely neutral.

In early scenes, school life is only occasionally interrupted by the distant sound of conflict, or hushed conversations between the local fishmonger and Sophia (Alfonsina Carrocio), one of the school’s Argentinian cleaners, which Michell — a fluent Spanish speaker, thanks to his travels in South America — pretends not to hear. Just like he pretends not to care about much at all, Coogan bringing an appealing, slightly dishevelled ‘Englishman abroad’ nonchalance to his performance. When the coup finally happens, and the school is closed for a week, Michell and his Swedish colleague (Björn Gustafsson, whose gentle comedic sparring with Coogan is a highlight) head for neighbouring Uruguay to party their troubles away.

It’s here, while trying to impress a local woman, that Michell comes across the hideous sight of an oil spill and several dead penguins. Seeing that one is still alive, he is persuaded to take it back to his hotel and clean it up, after which he tries to return it to the sea. When it won’t leave his side, Michell seemingly has no choice but to smuggle the bird back into Argentina, where he secrets it in his college apartment. It is, of course, not long before penguin — which Sophia names Juan Salvador after the Spanish version of novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull — has become a key part of college life; inspiring the boys in class, swimming in the pool, and even becoming a therapist of sorts to the troubled Michell and others. These moments with Juan Salvador (played by both real and animatronic penguins) are played to heavy-handedly stirring effect, propelled by Frederico Jusid’s overbearing Spanish-inspired score.

Michell’s charming memoir (whose audiobook is gently narrated by Bill Nighy) kept its focus tightly on his experiences within the school, observing events outside its walls and his brief brushes with the military from one remove. Yet here, screenwriter Pope (who wrote previous Coogan vehicles including Stan & Ollie and Philomena) attempts to bring the two worlds firmly together, resulting in  several diversions from the book — and reality. Whereas the actual Thomas Michell was a frewheeling lad in his 20s during his time in Argentina, this version is a weathered, world-weary man in his late 50s who is running from his own painful past. 

That tweak, of course, makes the character a ripe vessel for change and, after Sophia is kidnapped off the street in front of him (a character and event created for the film) he realises he cannot ignore what is happening around him. The screenplay has him directly confronting one of Sophia’s kidnappers, politely imploring for her release in an an excruciatingly earnest fashion, in a particularly blunt-edged, tone-deaf example of dramatic licence. 

It was, perhaps, difficult to tell this particular story without including its political context; to do so might have been to attract another type of criticism. But in its determination to maintain a glossy, upbeat tone throughout — even when dealing with an event that, as a final sombre title card tells us, saw ‘over 30,000 people killed or disappeared’ — The Penguin Lessons proves to be neither fish nor fowl.